海角大神

Chen Guangcheng鈥檚 escape from house arrest has caught the attention of China鈥檚 vast Internet community, despite his name being blocked by the 鈥淕reat Firewall of China,鈥� the nation鈥檚 Internet censors. 聽The vehicle that sidesteps the censorship? 聽The Internet meme.

鈥淚nternet meme鈥� is a term that defies easy definition. Generally speaking, it is an idea or concept that rapidly spreads through the Internet鈥檚 population, often fueled by a kind of ironic humor. 聽From 鈥溾�� 鈥� cat pictures juxtaposed with misspelled text 鈥� to , hundreds of memes exist, with more being created daily by the denizens of the Internet. 聽Indeed, has been devoted to documenting individual memes鈥� rise and fall.

But the Western English-speaking world does not hold a monopoly on Internet memes; every online sphere has its own collection of memes, including China. 聽And some memes have an added function in China鈥檚 heavily censored Internet: vehicle for political critique. 聽Design strategist and meme researcher An Xiao Mina, speaking this past weekend at , a convention about Internet memes at MIT in Cambridge, Mass., called them 鈥渢he street art of the social web.鈥�

Guerrilla activism

Overt political criticism remains out-of-bounds for most online Chinese, as automated Internet filtering and alert human censors work to purge sensitive references. 聽But memes allow Chinese Web users to express themselves by using a kind of guerrilla activism 鈥� avoiding the keywords that flag the automated filters and disguising political messages such that human censors cannot distinguish them from the overwhelming volume of innocuous online speech.

Take Chen鈥檚 captivity and subsequent escape, which have been inspiration for a number of Chinese memes. 聽One of the simplest is the 鈥�,鈥� a phenomenon started in China, where Chen supporters take pictures of themselves wearing sunglasses in reference to the blind activist鈥檚 eyewear. 聽In isolation, each photo does not trip the sensors of the 鈥淕reat Firewall鈥� 鈥� the photos are simply photos, the sunglasses simply sunglasses. 聽But in the aggregate, the hundreds of photos send a loud message.

Other memes are more complex, using visual codes, parodies, and satire. 聽An artist supporter of Chen created , featuring a cartoon version of Chen in place of the Colonel, and the slogan 鈥淔ree CGC.鈥� The similarity to KFC ads, which can be found all over China, provides a loose disguise, enabling Chen鈥檚 supporters to post the image 鈥� say, as a bumper sticker 鈥� despite its political message.聽

A small but potent community

This is not to say that China鈥檚 鈥渕emeosphere鈥� is rife with political activity, Ms. Mina points out. 聽

The memeosphere is huge, and most of China鈥檚 meme culture is as apolitical as the English version: Cat pictures and visual jokes far outnumber political memes. Though ascertaining the size of the political meme community is difficult, Mina guesses that it numbers in the hundreds at least. She also gathers from the avatars that the community uses that it tends to be made up of youths born in the 1980s and 鈥�90s. That may help it avoid the censors, she says, as their online 鈥渓anguage鈥� flies over the heads of older people 鈥� like party officials and censors. The meme community鈥檚 size is also small enough that it can survive in the Chinese Web鈥檚 censored environment, by hiding in the background noise of the larger Internet.

Still, she adds,聽 鈥渋t鈥檚 a small number, but large enough to garner attention from Western media and local [Chinese] officials,鈥� she says. 聽It鈥檚 also large enough to keep the fire burning for activists like Chen who might otherwise disappear from public view. 聽The 鈥淒ark Glasses Portrait鈥� meme began a year ago, while Chen was still in captivity. 聽But Mina thinks that the meme helped keep him in the public consciousness during an absence in which he could easily have been forgotten.

鈥淭he staying power of the Chen Guangcheng memes seems to me like the staying power of Occupy Wall Street.鈥� she says. 聽鈥淛ust the fact that the meme and its metamemes has endured over the past year is a statement in itself.鈥�

Viral survival

But even the Internet鈥檚 natural underbrush isn鈥檛 enough to hide the highest-profile, most sensitive memes like those about Chen. 聽In those cases, Mina says, the memes have to evolve to stay one step ahead of the censors. 鈥淭hey are viral in a basic sense, in that they mutate and evolve,鈥� says Mina.聽

For example, memes about Chen鈥檚 escape started attached to simple hashtags and keywords, which the censors quickly blocked. So the memeosphere took a queue from a picture created by anonymous activist cartoonist 鈥淐razy Crab,鈥� which depicted Chen鈥檚 escape as , and began using Shawshank as the tag for Chen memes. 聽For example, his supporters created variations of the Shawshank Redemption poster, referencing Chen by putting sunglasses on the image of Tim Robbins鈥檚 character.

When the censors caught up again, the meme once again evolved, this time to use quotes from the movie in English to fool the authorities. 聽As of writing, appropriate quotes from the film like "Some birds aren't meant to be caged, their feathers are just too bright,鈥� are still searchable on the Chinese Internet.